The River Dark

by Nicholas Bennett

  *

  The welle was depe. She sait to the Duc all th' she kenned but er lang she kenned he was to graven and burie her. The nature of her end was the one mysterie. What they desire was wyth the priests she sait but to noo avail. The priests are doon the welle she sait and they laughed at here as they defiled her with vile and blasfemeioius acts in the abbeie under the graven and holie statues. She looked in to the abyss it seemed and felt the girl's fear mingled with something more…disappointment, foolishness, self-recrimination. The plan had not worked. They had used her as a plaything- the pain emanating from every bodily orifice testimony to all that they had done to the girl as the dead woman had hidden in the darkness. Bizarrely, the dead woman felt the edge of guilt tinge her presence. T' other was back, the girl kenned, t' other fro the graven, t' other wytch. Roughe hands pressed her and she was shoved onto the lip of the welle. The priests had been doon in the tunnels of the abbeie; soldiers had reported back to the Duc and he had sent in a further detatchment but the priests had either destroyed their treasures, shipped them down the River Mea or the peasant girl had been lying. Er lang the priests would be graven in their tunnels wi' the riches they had kepen secrete buryed in the hallow erthe they praised as they committed a' manner a sinne after the sonne hath brekken for nitetyme. They had allowed her to cover her bruised and bitten body with the rags she had worn since time immemorial. But now the calloused hands of her attackers invaded her scant coverings again, pinching at her abused buttocks and squeezing her punctured breasts. She felt the girl's knees buckle as she looked down into the well and heard the lascivious noises of the soldiers. They wanted more of her before she was discarded. The dead woman felt the girl's resolve strengthen and hands pushed her back into the darkness beyond the peasant witch's consciousness.

  The dead woman fought to remain with the peasant witch; she had abandoned her to the sadistic soldiers, she would not abandon her again. Nevertheless she retreated from the tunnel reality of the girl's vision. The well faded away and dimly felt the girl step out onto air before the stomach lurching sensation of falling. Rough hands grabbed her and dragged her away from the peasant witch. An immoveable weight pressed into her ribs surely enough to splinter her bones. She was released and pressed again. For a moment she looked up at the circle of light from the foot of the well before the sensation of speed overcame her as she rushed along a dark tunnel towards another tyme and a different witch.

  Chapter Sixteen

  1

  The walking dead of Measton stood shoulder to shoulder, abdomen to spine in the cavern, their eyes beginning to film over with the same tenebrous substance that had rendered inhuman the eyes of a man once revered by his students, now reduced to the creature that had carried him through the tunnels with the strength of a carthorse and the agility of a greyhound.

  Weaver stood among them, afraid to move, hardly daring to breathe.

  The chronology of metamorphosis was clearly represented. Several of the missing had the beginnings of the jaundiced complexion of Weaver's captor and some had clumps of hair missing revealing the same dried out scalp. A woman to Weaver's left allowed her mouth to hang open, her double chin resting against her chest, her turkey mottle spread above breasts that overlapped a wrinkled and mottled stomach. The interior of her mouth was the color of mud, her tongue a blue grey mollusk that pushed at a cracked lower lip, a cancerous eel waiting to be born. To his right, a boy of no more than thirteen listened to the whispers that resonated in the cavern with his head cocked to one side in the manner of an inquisitive dog; a meat cleaver, stained a rusty brown that Weaver knew to be dried blood, rested against the boy's leg.

  So this was where they had ended up and he, like them, would end his days in the corrupt bowels of this diseased town. Of that he was sure. There was plainly no way out. He was as good as dead.

  The thing that had been Davies was nowhere in the vicinity; it had departed within seconds of depositing him among the shit-stinking mass of catatonics in the cave, loping easily through the tangle of limbs with such grace it was monstrous, like the slick movements of a sewer rat among garbage.

  Even in his half-mad state, Weaver could appreciate the tired irony of all of this. Here he stood, at the death of his town. Finally home again. Yes, home. As much as he’d tried to deny it, as much as he thought he’d "moved on", there was never really any escape was there? He remembered the feeling of liberation he had first felt upon arrival in Brighton as a young man and now realized it was a superficial feeling; the bias and prejudice of his own town had eventually resurfaced and had chipped away at the edges of his hurriedly constructed newly-floated raft of liberalism until it had floundered, pulled down by the weight of his upbringing, the narrow-mindedness of his people. In times of conflict the raft was not enough and he found himself clinging to the anchor of his value system be it right or wrong. It didn't matter either way. That was the way of Measton. Always had been, would be always. People were the way they were and, if you didn't like it- tough.

  "Tough," he whispered to himself, not conscious of the fact that he had spoken. "Gotta get tough."

  Weaver emerged from his fugue and took in his surroundings once more. He began to think in earnest for the first time of a means of escape.

  2

  "Heaney! Heaney! Please John! Don't leave me here!"

  Collins sobbed in the darkness. Something brushed by his ankle and he shrieked causing a high-pitched eee to resonate through the labyrinth before fading into the utter blackness. Absolute darkness is not a common concept his rational mind wittered at him irrationally, in towns and cities night is lit by the artificial glow of electricity while in the countryside- even on a cloudy night- there is the Moon and the stars behind the clouds casting a silvery light however faint but this-

  This was complete darkness; he may as well have been blind. In his mind's eye he could see himself reaching a hand out before him as he moved through the darkness and imagined all manner of atrocities brushing against his fingers or ducking beneath his palm. The scalding face of the insane eye eater from Rennick grinned at him and licked his lips before miming his much used repetitive catchphrase. Collins shook his head and gritted his teeth against the fear. Time would pass. How long, he knew not. And then, inevitably, the imagined shapes would appear in his mind and he would call out desperately for Heaney to return. How could Heaney have left him in the darkness? Even out of love for his son, how could he do this? Unless-

  Unless Heaney had been infected too. No. Not Heaney. He was a desperate father that was all and his desperation had made him irrational. Collins felt breeze against his face and imagined a hand waving inches before his nose and, behind it, the leering blur of a screaming face.

  Collins inched along the tunnel, the palm of his right hand brushing against the ancient masonry. The only sound was that of his laboured breathing. Heaney had been right; he should have remained where he was and allowed the younger men to do the job. He squeezed his shoulder against the pain of the bullet wound and felt the dim throb of his leg vying for attention, like an old but unwanted school friend tugging at your arm at an unwanted school reunion. Stubborn old bastard, Pete Sandals would have said. Good old Pete- afraid of nothing and as honest as the day was long. Collins took in a deep breath. Even the thought of his old mentor raised his spirits somewhat. He edged along the tunnel with the distinct feeling of descent increasing every yard.

  "-oy-oy-oy.."

  A voice echoed from somewhere below. Heaney's voice he was sure. It came again.

  "-own- own-" came the refrain but it was not enough to be understood. Still, it gave the older man hope. Heaney was close. He dared himself to move faster with less cautious steps into the darkness. The incline steepened. Collins' heels scraped and skidded on the slick ground. Dripping water resonated with the depth of a stray droplet of water into the font of a cathedral. There was an opening nearby. He was sure of it. More sounds ahead.

  "son-son-son…sta-sta-sta"

 
; "John!" Collins called, aware for the first time that he could see a dim light in the distance. "I'm coming! Hang on!" Collins shouted. Regardless of the moisture and the lethal stalactites, Collins began to run. It felt good to run. A second wind of adrenalin flooded his senses. Feelings of having failed his young colleague abated.

  "Heaney!" Collins bellowed and sprinted towards the light source.

  3

  "If you hurt my little brother, I'll kill you," Jack said, the tears running freely, coursing clean tracks through his dirtily smeared cheeks. Claire sobbed on the forest floor off to the right. The beast before him held the unconscious little boy over one knee and grinned at Jack; in its filthy yellow hand, it held a piece of broken glass poised over Kevin's throat. Jack pointed the double barrels at its head but his hands were shaking badly. He knew they’d had it now. It had caught them unawares.

  They’d headed into Ross's Forest to hide from the gangs of prowling insane that they ran into whenever they had tried to get out of town. Once, they had even tried to mimic the gait of the infected but the possessed people of Measton instinctively knew their own. That had been close. They’d almost been grabbed by an old woman who had once taught Primary School; she’d bared her teeth at them as they scampered out of her reach, the now familiar wheezing scream following them into the alleyway. Eventually they had been forced into the edge of the forest and found themselves heading uphill towards the power pylon that had long been regarded as an eyesore by the older residences but seemed to attract the youth of Measton with the magnetic draw of a flame to a moth. Jack had spent evenings beneath the buzzing monolith, smoking and drinking cider with his mates some of whom took girls there where they could investigate the mysteries of bra catches and knicker elastic in relative safety. Jack didn't even realize that they were heading that way until he saw the familiar debris off to the side of the trail, bottles, cans and crisp packets as well as a crumpled cigarette packet with washed out letters informing them that Smoking Kills. They heard the telltale buzzing of the pylon before they came to the clearing at the top of the hill.

  "We're at the pylon!" Kevin said excitedly; it had taken on mythical proportions for the little boy who, in worshipful admiration of his big brother, had heard many tales of the teenage world with “The Pylon” as principle setting. Kevin broke away from Claire's hand and sprinted up the last ten feet of the trail.

  "Kevin!" Jack screamed; he had seen a movement in the shrubbery but too late. A naked arm snaked out of the undergrowth and knocked the little boy off his feet. Claire screamed. The creature revealed itself then and both teenagers stared at it in horror. Claire recognized it as the creature that had been running along

  Cornhill Road with a man on its back. It had torn out most of its hair and its body was yellow and filthy. Despite the grime, they could see the veins protruding unnaturally at its neck and on its biceps. Its pupils were black. The creature grinned at them as it held Kevin at its mercy.

  Claire crawled to where Jack stood. "What are we going to do, Jack?"

  Jack shook his head minutely. He didn't know. The creature opened its mouth revealing a black tongue in between yellow and brown teeth. The hissing whisper began. Words formed in Jack's mind. Images swirled and he felt himself wobble with tiredness. The creature told him to put the gun down.

  "You have done very well," a soothing voice told him, a voice much like his mother's; for a moment the image of his dead mother filled his mind; he had not allowed the image to dwell for any more than a fleeting second that night; he was sure that, if he allowed his mind to wander along that road, he would start screaming and once he started he wasn’t sure that he would ever be able to stop. "Now put down the gun and we will release Kevin." The creature proffered the still form and cocked its head to one side to illustrate the deal.

  "Then what?" Jack said. Claire looked up at him in confusion; she had heard nothing but the harsh hissing, a noise that hurt her head. The voices began to prod at Jack's mind and easily found his weakness. The voices showed him what he could do with the girl at his side; they showed him things beyond his wildest fantasies.

  Jack looked at Claire's tear bloated face and back to the thing that held his brother. He lowered the gun and stood motionless with his mouth agape. Claire realized what had happened and began to back away from Jack on her hands and knees, shaking her head wildly.

  The creature grinned and cast the small boy onto the ground and stood up to approach the girl. When it was less than six feet away, Jack raised the shotgun and squeezed both barrels.

  The yellow face disappeared in a cloud of blood and bone.

  The naked creature twitched on the forest floor and was still. Jack stepped over the corpse and picked up his brother, saying his name over and over. Kevin opened one eye sleepily.

  "Jack?"

  Jack kissed his brother's face and turned back to Claire. She had retreated into the trees and looked at him in terror unable to comprehend what she had seen. Jack carried Kevin to her and knelt on the ground, setting him down.

  "I'm sorry Claire," Jack said. "It was the only way. I had to pretend that they'd got to me so I could catch it off guard. It said things to me that it thought I would like to hear. Bad things."

  Remembering the insidious voices and caressing hands in her mind before Jack had arrived that evening, Claire said: "But how did you resist it?"

  Jack shook his head. His face reddened. "I don’t know," he said and then blurted: "It thought it could get at me just because I – you know- fancy you and everything but it couldn't- oh, shit- I don't know." He looked at his brother and closed his eyes. "It couldn't get to me through you," he said quietly.

  Claire looked at the two boys, brothers, and asked: "Why?"

  Kevin opened his eyes and looked at her coyly. "Because he loves you," he said and snuggled into Jack's chest for extra warmth. The pylon hummed above them.

  4

  The curator's wrist was slick in his hand. Tom clenched his teeth and let out a guttural moan as he tried in vain to push the man away from him. The older man's superior weight and impetus had forced Tom back onto the well, the edge of the stonework cutting into the flesh of his lower back. The scythe that had done for Hendricks trembled inches from Tom's left eye. As he stared at it, he watched in horror as some of the young copper's blood gathered into a ball and dropped off the point of the curved blade; he twitched and blinked violently as it splashed onto his lower eyelid. The older man pressed his advantage and pushed at Tom with renewed strength. He could feel himself beginning to mount the circular wall of the well until his head, shoulders and upper back were suspended above the drop. The curator sensed his imminent victory and stepped back in order to deliver the final reaping with a flourish. Tom realised that he had only one course of action left to him and kicked out at the other man's chest. He felt a satisfying yield of flesh and then realized that he had also pushed himself beyond the point of balance. He threw his arms over his head in a desperate attempt to reach the other side of the circular opening. The backs of his hands, wrists and forearms slapped painfully against stone but afforded no purchase. The saving grace was the fact that his vain action had at least allowed time for his lower body to swing into the well- feet first and vertical.

  He dropped in to the darkness.

  Tom hit the water and braced himself for the pain of broken bones. Miraculously, none came. He had hugged his knees prior to hitting the water and his buttocks jogged painfully against the well floor. He stood in the water amazed to be alive and looked up to where the curator had tried to kill him. He had survived death twice in a matter of seconds it seemed.

  He shook himself and wondered what to do. He supposed that the only choice left to him was to follow in the wake of the two policemen. Above, in the circle of light, there was nothing to see but he heard a grating noise as though something heavy was being dragged along the earth. Something dark leaned over the lip of the hole above and scraped against the stonework. He could not work out what
it was. The shape seemed to totter on the edge as he frowned up at it, thinking: what the fuck is he doing?